The current Winter Games in Peyongchang hit some really great buttons. I almost said cool instead of great, but yeah, let's not - because there is a lot more warmth than at any previous Winter Games that I remember.

Peyongchang quickly got dubbed The Peace Games due to North Korea sending a high profile delegation along with their athletes - who competed under a unified Korean flag. And that, my friends, is the magic of sport as a unifier.

Image Credit

Let's set the North Korea/South Korea politics aside and focus on the way sport united a divided country.

South Africa saw that too with the Rugby World Cup that year when Former President Mandela walked onto the field wearing a Springbok rugby jersey. That seemingly simple gesture unified a very fragile new democratic South Africa.

But enough of politics. For me, the REAL magic of the Peyongchang Winter Games came via an American figureskater who's name few people knew a few weeks ago. Now, Adam Rippon needs no introduction. Boy. Can that man skate or what?

Somewhere in an interview Adam Rippon said that he is so confident of making it to Peyongchang that the only reason why he wouldn't make it is if there are moms of his competitors on the selection committee. Turns out there wasn't.

After a bit of controversy on Twitter between himself and American Vice President Mike Pence, Adam melted ice and hearts in his first Winter Olympics. When asked how it feels to compete as an openly gay man, he simply said it feels exactly the same as being a heterosexual Olympian, but with better eyebrows.

And then he put his money where his mouth was an skated to the podium and a medal.

Have a look and see if you can count the number of turns when he spins towards the end of his routine.

Source: YouTube

Certainly fierce and not for the fainthearted, love him or not, you have to marvel at his performance.

Well done Team USA. Well done Adam Rippon. This is what it's about. Tenacity. Perseverance. Doing your thing despite haters and doubters.

Hats off to you Adam, and thank you for the awesome performance and the pleasure you gave to so many who watched you. Your name is now written in the stars.

Please keep your skates sharp, don't fall and break anything and keep that flame of your burning bright.

So. Here is a zero to hero story, and the reward of not giving up despite adversity. Because as Theodore Roosevelt famously said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

@steemcleaners, apologies for the last post. We have a new team member on board which assisted with a few posts. He is very excited about most things in life and was under the impression that the content he posted was facts based and therefor public domain. We made it clear that he must from now on only use original content to the highest degree. Our future posts will as always be of the same high quality as this posts

The SportsPodium Team

Our Website https://sportspodium.io/
Telegram https://t.me/SportsPodiumPublic
GitHub https://github.com/SportsPodium/Documentation
Twitter https://twitter.com/@mysportspodium
Our Blog https://steemit.com/@sportspodium